Overheard: June 2009 Archives

Blight in Hartford may have been the issue of this weekend's column. But readers wrote in to say that it's an issue that's affecting, and frustrating, residents from many towns and cities.

Here's a bit from a Portland resident:We have been trying to deal with unsightly properties in our neighborhood here in Portland for several years. Unfortunately, the problem is not limited to the big cities nor to low-income neighborhoods in Connecticut. A job transfer brought us up here about ten years ago from Jupiter FL, and we have noticed that these blight stories and letters to the editor show up in The Courant on a regular basis. I suspect you could do an on-going series on this!

She just may be right. The emails keep piling up...from Simsbury -- yeah, Simsbury!? Windham, Coventry, Mansfield...the tales keep coming in about towns with blight ordinances, but with little, if any, enforcement.

Considering that this is exactly the kind of thing that sends people running from a town or neighborhood, it seems to me that this is an issue local pols need to start taking seriously.

I plan to revisit this issue in future columns.

But in the meantime, what's working, or not, in your town when it comes to blight?